Technology as a Tool for Fighting Poverty: How Culture in the Developing World Affect the Security of Information Systems

Many developing nations are looking to IT infrastructure investments as means to reach sustainable economic growth. They strive to automate various processes in anticipation to improve production and quality of service to meet millennium development goals and cope with globalization needs. This has led to the automation of critical systems. It is therefore imperative that the security of such critical systems is one of the central issues to be addressed as developing nations plan, acquire and use information systems. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of culture in systems security problems. We argue that insecure systems undermine economic growth and that culture defines how people plan, acquire and use information systems in a secure way. We also present some findings of culture evaluation case study that was carried out in Tanzania to determine the role of culture in the process of securing electricity power utility systems